The 2009 edition of the GEISA spectroscopic database

The updated 2009 edition of the spectroscopic database GEISA (Gestionet Etudedes Informations Spectroscopiques Atmospheriques ; Management and Study of Atmospheric Spectroscopic Information) is described in this paper. GEISA is a computer-accessible system comprising three independent sub-databases devoted, respectively, to: line parameters, infrared and ultraviolet/visible absorption cross-sections, microphysical and optical properties of atmospheric aerosols. In this edition, 50 molecules are involved in the line parameters sub-database, including 111 isotopologues, for a total of 3,807,997 entries, in the spectral range from 10-6 to 35,877.031cm-1. GEISA, continuously developed and maintained at LMD (Laboratoirede Meteorologie Dynamique, France) since 1976, is implemented on the IPSL/CNRS(France) ‘‘Ether’’ Products and Services Centre WEB site (http://ether.ipsl.jussieu.fr), where all archived spectroscopic data can be handled through general and user friendly associated managements of software facilities. More than 350 researchers are registered for online use of GEISA

Fish remains, mostly otoliths, from the non-marine early Miocene of Otago, New Zealand

Fish remains described from the early Miocene lacustrine Bannockburn Formation of Central Otago, New Zealand, consist of several thousand otoliths and one skeleton plus another disintegrated skull. One species, Mataichthys bictenatus Schwarzhans, Scofield, Tennyson, and T. Worthy gen. et sp. nov., an eleotrid, is established on a skeleton with otoliths in situ. The soft embedding rock and delicate, three−dimensionally preserved fish bones were studied by CT−scanning technology rather than physical preparation, except where needed to extract the otolith. Fourteen species of fishes are described, 12 new to science and two in open nomenclature, representing the families Galaxiidae (Galaxias angustiventris, G. bobmcdowalli, G. brevicauda, G. papilionis, G. parvirostris, G. tabidus), Retropinnidae (Prototroctes modestus, P. vertex), and Eleotridae (Mataichthys bictenatus, M. procerus, M. rhinoceros, M. taurinus). These findings prove that most of the current endemic New Zealand/southern Australia freshwater fish fauna was firmly established in New Zealand as early as 19–16 Ma ago. Most fish species indicate the presence of large fishes, in some cases larger than Recent species of related taxa, for instance in the eleotrid genus Mataichthys when compared to the extant Gobiomorphus. The finding of a few otoliths from marine fishes corroborates the age determination of the Bannockburn Formation as the Altonian stage of the New Zealand marine Tertiary stratigraphy.Werner Schwarzhans, R. Paul Scofield, Alan J.D. Tennyson, Jennifer P. Worthy, and Trevor H. Worth